First Changeover - July 2008

Back at Fieldbase where we stayed for a few nights before the next phase started we got the gossip from the other groups about their last phase. The other community group who had been building a community centre had got a bad case of D+V (diahorrea and vomiting) from eating a chicken they’d killed (serves them right!). One of the really fit trekkers had got a really bad infection in a cut in his leg and it had swollen up and he was in hospital for quite a while and had to be sent home. Someone had an abscess on their hip from the chafing of the rucksack. We got a nice surprise finding that there was a laundry service in Turrialba, so we could start our next phase in sweet smelling clothes! The group had a review of the last phase with Julian the organiser for Costa Rican Raleigh so we could say what we thought of the PMs and the project. We were taught how to salsa (by Costa Rican venturers), got a slideshow of photos taken by the official photographer on each phase (I was Alpha 5’s), watched the Lost Property show by the PMs – they put on all the items of lost property between three of them of which there was a lot! And then stripped seeing if any items had an owner! On one of the evenings we performed our skit. The judges who were dressed up in boxing outfits announced the winning group who won a tub of ice cream. We got a chance to look around Turrialba and do a bit of shopping! Internet access was a treat plus it was really cheap! We had another party which was fun, the Bermudans put some of their hip-hop music on and were dancing along which looked pretty crazy! We were placed into our new groups for the following phase; Environmental and I was part of Alpha 4 in the National Park of Bahia (Beach) Junquillal. We did some ‘getting to know each other’ games and then sorted out the food, checking we’d been given enough to last the whole phase. I had to go through all the foods that we would be eating to check that everything was suitable for me and if it wasn’t then choose something as an alternative.